Sri Lanka travel guide

Travel to Sri Lanka between Dec – Apr. Those are the months the weather, the crowds and the airfare line up — outside them you trade one of the three.

Currency

Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR)

Language

Sinhala and Tamil; English is spoken in hotels, shops and by every guide and driver.

Time zone

SLST (UTC+5:30) — same clock as India

Plug type

Type D / G, 230V

Flight time from India

2.5 hrs

Flying from

Mumbai · Delhi · Chennai

• 

  Climb Sigiriya, the Lion Rock

  A two-hundred-metre column of rock with the ruins of a fifth-century palace on its flat top, reached by 1,200 steps past mirror-wall graffiti and painted maidens. Start by seven in the morning — the light is soft, the stairways are empty and the heat has not yet arrived. The view from the summit explains why a king built here.

• 

  Ride the hill-country train to Ella

  The stretch between Nanu Oya and Ella is among the most beautiful railway rides anywhere — three hours of tea gardens, tunnels, cloud forest and village platforms, ending near the Nine Arch Bridge. Reserved seats sell out weeks ahead in season; we book them with the package so you are not standing in the doorway. Though standing in the doorway is half the fun.

• The Temple of the Sacred Tooth, Kandy

  Kandy was the last royal capital, and its lakeside temple holds a tooth relic of the Buddha behind seven caskets of gold. Go for the evening puja, when drummers in white fill the corridors. Dress with shoulders and knees covered — sarongs are lent at the gate for anyone caught short.

• 

  The Gathering at Minneriya

  Wild elephants converge on the receding shores of the Minneriya and Kaudulla reservoirs — sometimes twenty, sometimes three hundred, which is the largest regular meeting of Asian elephants in the world. An open jeep from Habarana takes half a day. Keep your distance and let the herd come to the water on its own terms.

• 

  Galle Fort at sunset

  A complete walled town built by the Dutch in the seventeenth century, still lived in — lighthouses, churches, cafés and jewellers inside ramparts that the sea beats against. Walk the full circuit of the walls in the last hour of light, when half the town comes out to do the same.

• 

  The west- and south-coast beaches

  Bentota is the settled family stretch — calm river on one side, long sand on the other, turtle hatcheries and water sports in between. Further south the bays get smaller and prettier: Unawatuna, Mirissa with its whale boats, Tangalle. December to April is when this coast is at its calm, swimmable best.

• Rice and curryVegetarian

  Not one dish but a spread — rice ringed by five or six small curries, a mallung of shredded greens, dhal, and papadam. The vegetarian version is the everyday default, not a special request, which makes Sri Lanka one of the easiest countries in the world for Gujarati travellers to eat well in.

• Hoppers

  Bowl-shaped crepes of fermented rice flour and coconut milk, crisp at the rim and soft at the centre — think of a dosa that learned geometry. Egg hoppers carry one baked into the base; plain ones are eaten with lunu miris, a fiery onion-chilli relish. A street breakfast costs less than a cup of airport coffee.

• Kottu roti

  Chopped flatbread stir-fried on a steel griddle with vegetables, egg or meat, to the loudest percussion in Asian street food — you hear a kottu stall before you see it. The vegetable-and-cheese version is the late-night order of choice in Colombo and Ella alike.

• String hoppers and pol sambolVegetarian

  Steamed nests of rice noodles eaten with coconut milk gravy and pol sambol — fresh coconut pounded with chilli, lime and onion. Mild, comforting and naturally vegetarian if you ask for the sambol without Maldive fish, which every kitchen understands.

• For Jain and strict vegetarian travellersJain friendly

  The trap to know: many "vegetarian" curries and sambols are seasoned with dried Maldive fish flakes, and most kitchens do not think of it as meat. Say "no Maldive fish, no dried fish" clearly and the food genuinely is vegetarian. Colombo, Kandy and Bentota all have Indian restaurants that cook Jain with a day’s notice; we brief your driver on this before day one.

Set a meal preference — vegetarian, Jain or halal — when you book and we brief every hotel and restaurant on your itinerary.

• Ceylon tea bought at estate shops in the hill country — ask for high-grown BOP or silver tips
• True cinnamon (not cassia), pepper and cloves from spice gardens around Matale
• Blue sapphires and moonstones — buy only from licensed dealers who issue a gem-testing certificate
• Handloom cotton and batik from Barefoot in Colombo and village workshops near Bentota
• Carved wooden masks from Ambalangoda, each one a character from the old exorcism plays
• Kithul palm treacle and jaggery — the island answer to maple syrup, wonderful over curd

The distances look tiny on the map and take twice what you expect on the road — thirty kilometres an hour is normal outside the southern expressway. A hired car with a driver for the whole trip is the standard and sensible way to travel, and it is what every Dreamvacaa Sri Lanka package includes. The hill-country train from Nanu Oya to Ella is a sight in itself and worth doing once even though the car could go faster; reserve seats well ahead in season. Tuk-tuks are everywhere for short hops — use the PickMe app in Colombo and Kandy to get the metered price, or agree the fare before you sit down anywhere else.

• Sri Lanka is a low-crime destination and the tourist circuit is well policed; the everyday risks are sunburn, road hours and bag-snatching in crowded markets rather than anything worse.
• The sea has strong currents and rip tides outside the December-April season on the west coast, and year-round on unguarded beaches. Swim where flags and lifeguards are present, and treat an empty beach as a warning rather than a find.
• Ocean-facing hotel pools and river mouths near Bentota can have crocodile warnings posted. They are not decoration — stay out of lagoons and river mouths unless a boatman says otherwise.
• Dress codes at temples are enforced: shoulders and knees covered, shoes and hats off, and never pose for a photo with your back to a Buddha statue — tourists have been fined and deported for it.
• Power cuts and fuel queues from the 2022 crisis are over, but carry some cash outside the cities; card machines fail with the rain, and ATMs thin out in the hill country.
• Monkeys at Sigiriya, Dambulla and hotel balconies are practised thieves. Keep food zipped away and windows latched, and do not feed them however photogenic the moment.

Per person, per day, on the ground — meals, local transport and entry tickets. Flights and hotels sit in the package price, not here.